Ex-Leinster and Harlequins fly-half Andrew Dunne has hit out at the lack of officiating around skewed scrum feeds and has pleaded for change.<\/b><\/p>\n
The scrum has been a hot topic this week after South Africa demolished Ireland in the set-piece en route to claiming a 24-13 victory at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin.<\/p>\n
The Springboks<\/a> dominated the set-piece, eking out penalties at will with both Irish<\/a> loosehead props, Andrew Porter and Paddy McCarthy, sin-binned for repeated infringements in the scrum.<\/p>\n South Africa was also awarded a penalty try after Rassie Erasmus replaced both of his starting props moments before the final two scrums of the first half.<\/p>\n Springbok beasts are unskilled<\/p>\n Ex-Leinster head coach Matt Williams has since bemoaned the influence the set-piece had on the fixture, stating: \u201cThe scrum is there to restart play, that\u2019s what it says in the lawbook, it was never meant to dominate the game.\u201d<\/p>\n While former fly-half Dunne believes that if referees officiated the scrum correctly, it would not be as influential in games and teams like South Africa would have to pick more skilled props.<\/p>\n World Rugby<\/a> law 19.15f states: \u201cWhen both sides are square, stable and stationary, the scrum-half throws in the ball: Straight. The scrum-half may align their shoulder on the middle line of the scrum, thereby standing a shoulder-width closer to their side of the scrum.\u201d<\/p>\n Dunne has taken issue with the fact that officials don\u2019t penalise scrum-halves for skew feeds and if they started to do so, he believes that \u2018beasts\u2019 like Thomas du Toit and Wilco Louw \u2013 who tip the scales over 140kgs \u2013 would need to add more to their game.<\/p>\n \u201cWhy is nobody challenging World Rugby about the feed into scrums?\u201d Dunne said on the Off the Ball Rugby podcast.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s literally the least refereed part of the game. If you go one degree crooked at a lineout, one degree, it\u2019s called.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I\u2019m watching every scrum-half, not just Cobus Reinach, every Irish scrum-half, every French scrum-half, do it. They used to square up when they put the ball into the scrum; they don\u2019t even do it anymore. They diagonally face the number eight and roll it into the number eight\u2019s feet.<\/p>\n Matt Williams: Springboks performance was \u2018masterful\u2019 but World Rugby must depower the scrum<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cThat accentuates what South Africa can do. They don\u2019t have to hook, they literally don\u2019t have to hook the ball back. They can have two beasts at 146kgs who can\u2019t catch, pass or run, but are able to just destroy scrums.<\/p>\n \u201cYou start putting in an actual square feed and you\u2019re going to have to pick props who can move around the field a bit more. There\u2019s so much that annoys me about the World Rugby refereeing because they\u2019re so pernickety about every area, like the tackle height.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s still there. It\u2019s a cast-iron rule you meant to put the ball in the square into every scrum. It\u2019s completely and utterly overlooked in every international, and then they go on about what a problem the scrum is. How about referee the first part of it?\u201d<\/p>\n Opinion: Credit to Daan Human as Springboks \u2018battered and bullied\u2019 Ireland\u2019s B&I Lions without their \u2018chief destroyers\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n